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“Ladies and gentlemen, pirates of all proclivities! Today, I’m bringing you something completely new, someone quite eccentric, and unlike anyone you’ve ever seen before!”
Blackbeard rolled his eyes as he walked past the spectacle. Public torture? Seriously? There had always been those who enjoyed this kind of shit, and he was sure that if he looked hard enough into the deepest recesses of his soul, he could find some sort of sliver of respect for that. But here? Public torturing didn’t really match what the vibe of this place should be. It didn’t match the vibe of what it once was, that’s for sure. If he was being honest, Blackbeard thought the whole business of publicly torturing some poor bloke for tips from the audience was kind of gauche. This, right here, is why he stayed away from the Republic of Pirates when he was captaining the Queen Anne’s Revenge. Before he met… No, not thinking about him.. He used to frequent the area, back when he ran with Jack and Mary and Anne, but more recently? Not a chance. The place had just gotten so damn touristy. It had lost that genuine spark it had possessed all those years ago. The violence, the passion, the life. It was all gone now, and only theatricalized tatters remained.
Things must have been truly desperate for the crew of the New Revenge to dock here, of all places. Blackbeard had pleaded with Izzy to let them try and find another port. But Izzy insisted the crew were “starving” or something like that, which Blackbeard very much doubted. He wasn’t starving. Then again, there was something about Rhino Horn that really decreased the appetite. When he had really thought about it, through the haze of the drugs, he couldn’t actually remember the last time he had ingested more than a bottle of shit rum. Blackbeard was a tough captain, sure, but he sure as hell wasn’t about to let his crew starve to death. Well, even if he was, Izzy wasn’t. And he knew there was no reasoning with that man, even on the best of days. And the second Izzy had told him that they were almost out of rum, well… the stop was a necessary evil.
However, that did not mean that he had to be mentally present for any of it. He ducked his head as he snuck through the crowd, trying desperately not to draw attention to himself. The last thing he needed right now was attention. He just needed a drink. After this morning’s half-bottle, he was beginning to sober up, and he couldn’t have that. Because as he sobered, the pictures and memories in his head became clearer and clearer. Flashes of teal and blonde shot across his mind like a slash to the chest, sending searing pain through his soul. Blackbeard knew that with sobriety came memories of…
“The Gentleman Pirate!”
For a split second, he was wrongfooted. It wasn’t often that Blackbeard’s thoughts were spoken aloud like that, right as he was thinking them. His first thought was that he must have said the words out loud himself. Alcohol could make it easier to do that sort of thing, and not realize you’d done it. But as jeers and shouts started rolling through the crowd assembled around him, the picture of what was happening slowly came together in his quickly sobering brain. He stopped dead in his tracks, keeping his head down, and staring straight into the dirt. There was no way. There was absolutely. No. Way. It had to be someone else.
“I assure you, you really don’t have to do this. This seems quite barbaric, in all honesty.”
At the very sound of that voice, that voice, familiar tears stung at Blackbeard’s eyes, threatening to fall. It was him. Standing not thirty feet behind him was the man he had fallen so quickly and intensely in love with. The man he had wanted to run away with. The man he was willing to leave everything behind to be with. The man who left him on that dock in the dark, until the sun rose, and the light died in his chest. The man who stole his heart and then left Ed bleeding out, wishing he could just rest, and not feel that searing pain of rejection at every waking moment.
Blackbeard watched as a kohl-tinged tear fell from his face, darkening a small spot of dirt next to his right boot. He felt the pain. He had been feeling the pain. Hell, in all honesty, he had been doing his damnedest not to feel the pain. But in the end, it was all for nothing. Because hearing that voice for the first time in months was almost more painful than anything he had dealt with so far.
“We’re pirates, pretty boy. It’s what we do,” the torturer said to Stede, but loud enough for the whole crowd to hear. There was the resounding, sickening thud of a fist hitting human flesh and Stede groaned from behind him. Blackbeard squeezed his eyes closed against the sound. Hell, he almost thought that if he closed his eyes hard enough, he could simply not be here anymore. He wasn’t ready to deal with this yet. Wasn’t ready to face the pain. If he closed his eyes hard enough, maybe when he opened them, he would be back in his cabin, surrounded by empty rum bottles and Stede’s few remaining possessions. Maybe when he opened his eyes, Stede wouldn’t be in danger behind him, but would be tucked safely inside his jacket, right next to his heart, standing about 3 inches tall.
Another thud echoed through the square and the crowd cheered. Despite the near-overwhelming storm of sadness and hurt swirling in his head, his heart clenched at the breathy whimper he heard come from Stede. This couldn’t be happening. Why was he letting this happen? He was fucking Blackbeard for fuck’s sake.
With a mighty inhale and moment of anticipation, Ed turned to face his ex-lover, not quite prepared to see him, but what other choice did he have? The love of his life was being actively hurt, not twenty feet from where he stood, and he was not about to stand by and let it happen. His breath caught in his throat momentarily as he saw Stede doubled over, knees now in the dirt, heaving for breath with his arms secured behind his back. His blonde hair was dirty and darkened with oil and dirt, as was the rest of him. It looked like the man hadn’t bathed in weeks. He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of sage-colored linen pants. From the fragments of Stede’s torso he was able to see, he had been here longer than Ed was willing to think about. Yellow and green swaths of old, half-healed bruises streaked across Stede’s stomach and pecs, overlapping with newer, fresher, purple and blue. That was not the right color for a human, and Ed knew immediately that Stede had been through a lot more than just a single torture show here at the Republic. Stede’s shoulders heaved as he fought for breath, keeping his head down. His thoughtless obedience sent a shock of dread into Ed’s stomach, making him slightly nauseous. How long had he been here?
There was a moment of stillness before the torturer brought his elbow down against the back of Stede’s skull, sending him sprawling forward into the dirt. Another raucous cheer sprung up from the crowd, the bunch of sick bastards. With his hands bound behind his back as they were, Stede was unable to catch himself, his face hitting the ground with enough force to made Ed cringe. He stepped forward, panic racing through his veins as Stede went still against the ground. But Ed froze as his lover heaved in a shuddering breath before starting to move.
His head rolled to the right slightly, and Stede looked up. Their eyes caught, and Ed’s breath was stolen from his chest.
Ed had seen Stede in a number of different states of being. Hell, when they met, the man was quite literally bleeding out, and had just been hung. But Ed had never seen him look quite this bad. His eyes were sunken into his skull, creating the illusion that he had not slept in days. And hell, for all Ed knew, he hadn’t. One of his eyes was very nearly swollen shut, blood trickling down past it from a cut in his eyebrow. The sickly black and blue bruising was mottled with the yellow and brown of older wounds all across his face and neck. His lip was split as well, spilling blood past his chin and into a small puddle in the dirt. Or… maybe that was coming from his broken nose, which was also bleeding profusely.
Their eyes locked, and Stede blinked at him, expressionless. And then, the fucking lunatic, Stede’s face lit up in the most ecstatic grin Ed had ever seen.
And that was it, for Ed. All was forgiven. Ed would deny it until the day he died, saying he struggled with seeing the man who left him in such sorry shape, but he knew immediately that everyone who had ever touched this glittering sunbeam of a man would die a painful death at his own hands.
Stede’s smile only grew as Ed marched forward, head down, eyes wide, glaring at the man who dared to harm The Gentleman Pirate. Ed gripped the pistol at his waist, not even focused on Stede anymore. His world was tinted red as he aimed the gun at the assailant’s head, not hesitating for a moment as he pulled the trigger.
There was a brief moment of silence as the shot rang out through the streets of the Republic of Pirates. The torturer’s head exploded in an eruption of viscera, blood, and bone, as the bullet sliced through his brain. Ed continued stalking forward, his eyes never leaving the man. Well… corpse now, Ed supposed. He stood over the torturer, feeling the rage burning in his chest as he discharged another bullet into the man’s chest, for good measure. Nobody fucked with Ed Teach and lived to tell the tale.
“Ed?”
Well… That wasn’t exactly true, Ed supposed, as he turned to see Stede, now covered in his own blood, as well as a healthy splattering of entrails from his now-dead captor, lying in the dirt. Seeing his naked back, covered in bruises and cuts and what Ed knew to be whip markings, while Stede grinned up at him like Ed had hung the moon, the last of Ed’s trepidation crumbled to dust.
“Stede…”
Ed practically collapsed into Stede’s side, knees hitting the ground with a painful jolt that he didn’t even really feel. All he felt was the warmth of Stede’s body pressed close to his as he settled into the dirt next to him. His chest was seizing up with barely concealed emotion as he realized that this was real. This was happening. Stede was here. Stede was alive, and Stede was happy to see him. Ed failed to suppress a small sob as he felt Stede rest his face gently against Ed’s forehead. He felt the cool, slick slide of Stede’s blood-covered lips as he pressed a gentle kiss to Ed’s temple.
It was at that moment that Ed felt the resolve harden in his chest. There was at least one person that could fuck with Edward Teach. But as long as his heart beat in his chest, Ed swore that nobody would be able to fuck with Stede Bonnet and live to tell the tale. He would watch the world burn before he let this man, his love, see pain again. No matter what it took, he would protect Stede Bonnet until he drew his last breath.